Art Friends:

Biography

An excellent example of the first generation of American painters, Batcheller learned his craft and exacting realistic painting style as a marble worker for Tingley Brothers. The absence of art schools offered artistic personalities little opportunity for training except in factories and industrial workrooms. Seeking kindred souls, this Civil War soldier joined the first generation of Providence painters dubbed the “1855 group”. He launched his career in 1858 at age 23 producing hundreds of fine canvases of fruit & still life, landscape and portraits. The artist was known for his realistic style, which was celebrated by many fellow artists and art critics; especially his glowing color, vivid contrasts in texture and surfaces and exacting rendering. Batcheller enjoyed a 25-year career in the capital city.

“It seemed fitting to the Art Club, that an artist who had spent his whole life in Providence, seriously working out this own ideas in his own way, should receive some public recognition when that work was finish.”
– Sydney R. Burleigh and Edward M. Bannister